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Killing Riggs

I’m thinking the revamped Lethal Weapon isn’t doing well.

Kheesha (Mrs. Murtaugh) has already picked up another role, and Jordana Brewster (the Doctor) is totally gone. Murtaugh’s daughter is stepping up as a decently written female role that’s growing while his son and baby girl are MIA.

Including Hendricks whose no longer needed because her son’s new father figure died, this means two strong women have left the show, and a third is becoming less important. Cole’s ex-wife is stereotypically waffling between her hubby and the new boyfriend who is too chicken to propose, which is clearly not a position of strength.

Cole’s daughter is the best part of the new story arc. At least she has a sense that something is wrong and people need to heal and move on.

Cole (Seann) is so poorly written he’s basically just some depressed guy with lots of military skills and no depth. Plus his appearance changes each week. Seriously, Seann looks bored.

In short, they’ve over-corrected last year’s problems, which were set-safety and Clayne internalizing some of Riggs’ troubles, and are pretending the first two seasons never happened.

In doing so, they’ve lost the whole point of the show and over half of the interesting characters. Bailey, Scorsese, and Avery are still around, but are totally floundering because these characters barely acknowledge that anything’s changed.

The show could’ve easily spent two or three episodes showing the grief from losing Riggs (Clayne) to gain some closure and re-find their footing and interrelationships before introducing Cole. This also would’ve allowed the exiting characters to gracefully leave.

But the show rushed right past this opportunity, meaning the audience has almost no closure, either.

I don’t know why the decision was made for “out with old, in with the new” all in one episode, but a tremendous opportunity was lost. The show could’ve grown in ways the movies never could. It would’ve been great to see how the remaining characters changed, and this would’ve bought the writers some time to figure out who the new characters are.

Instead, they cut out the old with a sledgehammer which was then used to smash the squishy new characters in. Whoever decided to abruptly do all the story re-work may need a nudge with the same sledgehammer to find a new career. Losing Riggs is a big deal, and it’s like they’re trying to erase that he was ever there.

But I keep watching just in case they figure it out, mainly because it’s unobtrusive background noise while getting stuff done. More often than not, I’ll watch the intro, do some things around the house while vaguely glancing at the predictable progress, and catch the wrap-up to verify my guesses were accurate.

Not exactly the best formula to keep a show running.

You’ll notice that I haven’t covered Murtaugh (Wayans) and Getz.

I know it’s Wayans’ show, but if he didn’t want be overshadowed, he shouldn’t have picked a role that’s defined by its contrast with the other main character. Now that he’s just about the only thing the audience has to focus on, we see how boring he truly is. He has nothing to react to externally anymore because Cole is basically a prop, and the character itself doesn’t have much going on internally. The entire role is built on how someone with a stable family life and hates getting older reacts to Riggs’ special kind of crazy.

As for Getz, that actor always grates my nerves, and is the only character I wish they’d abruptly drop. Pesci made Getz work as a humorous side note despite the character being annoying twaddle. This actor’s just annoying twaddle. In all honesty, I skip every episode he’s in and catch up in the next, only to see that the overall story wasn’t changed or moved forward. At all.

Adding the borification of Murtaugh and realizing there’s no purpose whatsoever for Getz further lowers the chance of this show continuing. Which is too bad, because I really enjoyed the first two seasons.

I’m thinking maybe it’s time to watch Clayne’s new movie with Christian Kane, instead. if nothing else, it’ll have some yummy eye candy.